Courts

Ex-UO instructor guilty of false report

A former adjunct professor at the University of Oregon with a penchant for pestering local officials was convicted Monday of falsely accusing a Eugene police officer of sexually assaulting her in February, when she was arrested on stalking allegations that prosecutors later dismissed.

In a deal with prosecutors, Deborah Frisch, 53, entered a so-called Alford plea to a misdemeanor charge of initiating a false report. The agreement allowed Frisch to maintain innocence while acknowledging that authorities have enough evidence to convince a jury of her guilt.

Eugene police arrested Frisch on Feb. 19 and lodged her in the Lane County Jail on three counts of stalking. Authorities accused her of repeatedly harassing a city police officer, another city of Eugene employee and the director of a local nonprofit agency.

Prosecutors filed formal charges against Frisch but eventually agreed to dismiss them for lack of evidence, her court-appointed attorney, Gary Deal, told Lane County Circuit Judge Jodie Mooney on Monday.

Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel — who prosecuted Frisch at the request of officials in the Lane County District Attorney’s Office — told Mooney that he agreed with Deal’s summation of the case.

The false report charge arose after Frisch’s arrest. It was filed after Frisch told Lane County sheriff’s deputies on Feb. 20 that she had been sexually assaulted by a supervisor in the Eugene Police Department, Hummel said.

“Ms. Frisch, in a state of anger and emotion, (made) a horrific allegation” against the officer, Hummel said.

Deal acknowledged that the assault accusation “is not true.” Frisch, a Eugene area resident, declined to make any statement in court.

The Register-Guard generally does not identify alleged crime victims.

Mooney sentenced Frisch to two years’ probation and required her to undergo a mental health evaluation.

Frisch was released from jail after her court appearance. She had been held behind bars for 39 days since her arrest.

Court records show that Eugene police have been collecting potential evidence against Frisch for months. Various city officials received a total of 889 emails from Frisch between Sept. 26 and Feb. 5, officer Jed McGuire wrote in a search warrant affidavit.

The city diverted all of Frisch’s emails to a special folder and maintained them on a computer disk, McGuire wrote.

McGuire and several other officers — including the one Frisch had accused of sexually assaulting her — seized a computer, other electronic devices, a number of writings and marijuana from Frisch’s home while serving a warrant there on Feb. 17, according to an evidence sheet filed in court with the affidavit.

Frisch frequently sends group emails to government officials and others in the Eugene area. The messages often contain obscene language and vulgar allegations. Frisch regularly sends copies of the emails to officials in the Lane County District Attorney’s Office, which may explain why Deschutes County’s Hummel ended up prosecuting the criminal case.

Frisch, who has a doctorate in psychology, taught in the UO psychology department off and on between 1988 and 2001. She resigned her teaching position at the University of Arizona in 2006 after writing a series of inflammatory online comments to a conservative blogger.